Chapter 122: Thief Group (2)

The terrified bandits cautiously placed their hands on the ground, eyeing me nervously before I’d even mentioned what the proposal was.

They were probably preparing to flee, but their darting eyes gave them away completely. Looking around so obviously was like screaming, “Hey, I’m about to run away!”

To warn them against doing anything stupid, I drew Wolffang and sent a vacuum slash flying towards a distant tree.

As the invisible blade cut through numerous trees in its path, the bandits’ faces turned ashen with despair, their escape plans crumbling.

“Don’t even think about trying anything foolish.”

Seeing the cleanly sliced trees and imagining their own fate, the bandits nodded vigorously, their eyes brimming with tears.

‘Come to think of it, something like this happened before.’

I recalled the day I first met Hori, when we were also ambushed by bandits.

Back then, Hori had suddenly grabbed a rock and smashed one of the bandits’ heads. The memory made me smirk, which only terrified the bandits even more.

“Oh, sorry. Where were we? Right, the proposal. It’s simple. Tell us where your hideout is, and I’ll spare your lives.”

“…”

A cold silence enveloped the forest. When they didn’t speak, Jessica, misunderstanding their reason, looked at the bandits with surprise.

Of course, their silence wasn’t out of loyalty to their comrades, as Jessica might have thought, but for their own safety.

The only reason I hadn’t killed these bandits yet was because I didn’t know where their hideout was.

They knew all too well what would happen if they blindly trusted my words and revealed their hideout, only for me to break my promise.

I wanted to give them more time to think it over, but unfortunately, I wasn’t known for my patience.

“Stop overthinking and just ask if you have questions.”

“W-well… There’s no guarantee you’ll spare us…”

“Us? Shouldn’t that be ‘us'(formal)?”

“Ah, y-yes!! We meant there’s no guarantee you’ll spare us.”

“Hah…”

As their pathetic true intentions were revealed, Jessica crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

“Hmm… You can’t speak because there’s no guarantee. Well, just so you know, even if I say I’ll spare you, that doesn’t mean I’ll just let you go free.”

“Huh? Then…”

“We’ll hand you over to the guards.”

Their eyes widened at my words, which were essentially a death sentence despite the promise to spare their lives.

Thinking they were going to die anyway, one of the bandits dared to raise his voice and shout at me.

“H-how is that any different from killing us?! We’ll be executed as soon as we’re handed over to the guards–!!”

Annoyed by his raised voice, I drew Wolffang. The bandit’s words were cut off mid-sentence, just like his severed neck.

“You can speak, but don’t raise your voice or use informal language. I’m not as merciful as the curly-haired lady over there.”

“…”

Taking their silence as agreement, I calmly began to explain.

“You might be wondering what kind of bullshit this is, saying I’ll spare you but then handing you over to the guards. But don’t worry, you won’t be executed in the current situation, unlike in peacetime.”

“…Why is that?”

“Unlike peacetime, there’s a shortage of manpower right now.”

The territory was in a dire state due to Koraea and the barbarian attacks.

Not just the barrier, but villages and fortresses needed repairs too. When put on trial, they’d surely be sentenced to forced labor.

“The barrier’s destroyed, and bastards like you are swarming in. It’s a bit of a mess right now.”

“B-but still, there’s no guarantee it’ll turn out that way…”

“Even if you’re a noble, you can’t interfere with affairs in another territory, right?”

“That would be true for other territories.”

Saying this, I glanced at Jessica, and the bandits followed my gaze.

“You’ve probably noticed that impressive curly hair, the symbol of the von Grund family. She’s the young lady of the von Grund house.”

“Our family symbol isn’t curly hair!! Don’t make things up!”

“Curly hair is much more elegant than a hammer. Anyway, all it takes is a word from Lady Jessica here.”

The bandits looked at each other, dumbfounded by this incredibly fortunate turn of events.

It was understandable. What were the odds that the carriage they happened to attack belonged to the lord’s daughter?

“I-is this true?”

“Yeah, if you look at the direction we came from, you’ll see we’re not leaving, but entering from outside. Who else would be riding such a carriage into this dangerous area at a time like this?”

“…”

Seeming to find this credible, a glimmer of hope began to dawn on the bandits’ faces.

“I-I see. But then, who are you…?”

“Me? I’m her fiancé.”

“…Aaaaargh!!”

It was just a casual joke, but Jessica suddenly let out a shriek and shuddered as if she’d been electrocuted.

“W-what are you saying?!”

“It’s a joke. We’re just classmates. There’s someone I need to kill, so I came along to help out.”

Jessica, who had been trembling as if about to explode moments ago, froze like a car with its engine cut off at the word “joke.”

Deliberately ignoring Jessica’s incredulous stare, I turned back to the bandit who spoke to me.

“Oh, I see… But are just the two of you going? If something happens to you, we’ll be at the mercy of those guys…”

“Why are you afraid of that?”

“…Pardon?”

“Why are you afraid of people who are about to die?”

—Raei  Translations—

As I’d expected, they were a bandit group under the control of barbarians who had just crossed the barrier.

More precisely, they had rounded up several small, loosely organized bandit groups into one, with their numbers now easily exceeding a hundred.

“We were targeting merchants or nobles fleeing through the mountain paths… Even the main roads aren’t safe anymore, so many are escaping to the mountains…”

“…”

Hearing that even the main roads were dangerous, Jessica closed her eyes, imagining the current state of her territory.

The fact that even the regularly patrolled main roads were unsafe meant there wasn’t enough manpower to handle the situation.

“Is there any other useful information? Any hostages, for example?”

“Well, not exactly hostages, but if there were any good-looking women, they’d take them and… you know…”

The bandit glanced nervously at Jessica, unable to finish his sentence. I completed it for him.

“You mean you passed them around, right?”

At those words, Jessica’s fist trembled, perhaps empathizing as a woman herself.

It was unfortunate for those women, but it meant there were no hostages worth worrying about.

Even these simple-minded fools wouldn’t consider women they’d already abused as valuable hostages.

“Anything else?”

“Well… The boss said once we gather enough food, we’ll attack a nearby fortress. He said he’d become some kind of king there…”

“Forget being a barbarian, he’s just an idiot. Becoming a king by taking over one fortress, my ass…”

Looking at the map, there was indeed a fortress of considerable size near our route.

Several small villages surrounded the fortress. If it fell, those villages within its influence would be in danger too.

“How much food have they gathered?”

“I’m not sure exactly, but they said we’d be moving soon, so probably quite a bit…”

“Then they’ll be leaving soon.”

The bandits’ hideout was about a four-day walk away, which meant only a day or two’s ride on a horse trained in energy manipulation.

Perhaps due to the anxiety that the fortress might be attacked soon, Jessica hurriedly boarded the carriage.

We couldn’t put these guys in the carriage no matter how urgent it was, so we put some on the driver’s seat.

The rest were tied up tightly with ropes on the luggage compartment or the carriage roof, like cargo.

The once ornate carriage now looked bizarre, as if adorned with human shields, but we didn’t have the luxury to worry about appearances now.

Two days later, just before dawn, one of the bandits sitting on the driver’s seat asked me:

“W-we’ll arrive at the abandoned mining village they’re using as a base soon. But… you’ll really spare us, right?”

“…This again?”

They’d been constantly asking for confirmation throughout the journey.

I’d even yelled at them once out of irritation, but they kept asking regardless.

“I’ll swear on our family’s honor, so please stop asking… I might accidentally cut you down if you don’t.”

“…Yes.”

Shortly after, we stopped the carriage a distance away from the abandoned mining village that served as their base.

Observing the village from afar, we could see several torch-like lights moving around the entrance, suggesting they had posted sentries.

“I thought they were barbarians, but they seem surprisingly organized.”

“…They may be barbaric, but they’re loyal to those stronger than themselves.”

I nodded as Jessica commented on the lights at the entrance after disembarking from the carriage with me.

“Where’s the barbarian chieftain? If we capture him, the rest might scatter on their own.”

Of course, I had no intention of letting even one escape, but it wouldn’t hurt to know the leader’s location.

“The chieftain has taken over the largest building in the village. He has a large hawk tattoo on his chest, like the guys who were with us.”

“I see.”

Now that we’d learned everything we needed to know, these guys were no longer useful.

I immediately drew Wolffang and started beheading them one by one, starting with the nearest. The bandits’ faces filled with despair.

“B-but you swore…!!”

“Honor? From a family that was barely a baronet until recently? Don’t make me laugh…”

With each draw of the katana, a purple mist swirled as another body fell to the ground.

Foolish bastards shouldn’t have trusted a vow made on anything other than Baldo.